简.爱 英文版 Jane Eyre
夏洛蒂.勃朗特 Charlotte Bronte
CHAPTER II
I resisted all the way: a new thing for me, and a circumstancewhich greatly strengthened the bad opinion Bessie and Miss Abbotwere disposed to entertain of me. The fact is, I was a triflebeside myself; or rather OUT of myself, as the French would say:I was conscious that a moment's mutiny had already rendered meliable to strange penalties, and, like any other rebel slave, Ifelt resolved, in my desperation, to go all lengths.
"Hold her arms, Miss Abbot: she's like a mad cat. "
"For shame! for shame!" cried the lady's-maid. "What shockingconduct, Miss Eyre, to strike a young gentleman, your benefactress'sson! Your young master. "
"Master! How is he my master? Am I a servant?"
"No; you are less than a servant, for you do nothing for your keep.There, sit down, and think over your wickedness. "
They had got me by this time into the apartment indicated by Mrs.Reed, and had thrust me upon a stool: my impulse was to rise fromit like a spring; their two pair of hands arrested me instantly.
"If you don't sit still, you must be tied down, " said Bessie. "MissAbbot, lend me your garters; she would break mine directly. "
Miss Abbot turned to divest a stout leg of the necessary ligature.This preparation for bonds, and the additional ignominy it inferred,took a little of the excitement out of me.
"Don't take them off, " I cried; "I will not stir. "
In guarantee whereof, I attached myself to my seat by my hands.
"Mind you don't, " said Bessie; and when she had ascertained thatI was really subsiding, she loosened her hold of me; then she andMiss Abbot stood with folded arms, looking darkly and doubtfullyon my face, as incredulous of my sanity.
"She never did so before, " at last said Bessie, turning to theAbigail.
"But it was always in her, " was the reply. "I've told Missis oftenmy opinion about the child, and Missis agreed with me. She's anunderhand little thing: I never saw a girl of her age with so muchcover. "
Bessie answered not; but ere long, addressing me, she said -- "Youought to be aware, Miss, that you are under obligations to Mrs.Reed: she keeps you: if she were to turn you off, you would haveto go to the poorhouse. "
I had nothing to say to these words: they were not new to me: myvery first recollections of existence included hints of the samekind. This reproach of my dependence had become a vague sing-songin my ear: very painful and crushing, but only half intelligible.Miss Abbot joined in -
"And you ought not to think yourself on an equality with the MissesReed and Master Reed, because Missis kindly allows you to be broughtup with them. They will have a great deal of money, and you willhave none: it is your place to be humble, and to try to makeyourself agreeable to them. "
"What we tell you is for your good, " added Bessie, in no harshvoice, "you should try to be useful and pleasant, then, perhaps,you would have a home here; but if you become passionate and rude,Missis will send you away, I am sure. "
"Besides, " said Miss Abbot, "God will punish her: He might strikeher dead in the midst of her tantrums, and then where would she go?Come, Bessie, we will leave her: I wouldn't have her heart foranything. Say your prayers, Miss Eyre, when you are by yourself;for if you don't repent, something bad might be permitted to comedown the chimney and fetch you away. "
They went, shutting the door, and locking it behind them.
The red-room was a square chamber, very seldom slept in, I mightsay never, indeed, unless when a chance influx of visitors atGateshead Hall rendered it necessary to turn to account all theaccommodation it contained: yet it was one of the largest andstateliest chambers in the mansion. A bed supported on massivepillars of mahogany, hung with curtains of deep red damask, stoodout like a tabernacle in the centre; the two large windows, withtheir blinds always drawn down, were half shrouded in festoonsand falls of similar drapery; the carpet was red; the table at thefoot of the bed was covered with a crimson cloth; the walls werea soft fawn colour with a blush of pink in it; the wardrobe, thetoilet-table, the chairs were of darkly polished old mahogany. Outof these deep surrounding shades rose high, and glared white, thepiled-up mattresses and pillows of the bed, spread with a snowyMarseilles counterpane. Scarcely less prominent was an amplecushioned easy-chair near the head of the bed, also white, with afootstool before it; and looking, as I thought, like a pale throne.
This room was chill, because it seldom had a fire; it was silent,because remote from the nursery and kitchen; solemn, because itwas known to be so seldom entered. The house-maid alone came hereon Saturdays, to wipe from the mirrors and the furniture a week'squiet dust: and Mrs. Reed herself, at far intervals, visited itto review the contents of a certain secret drawer in the wardrobe,where were stored divers parchments, her jewel-casket, and a miniatureof her deceased husband; and in those last words lies the secretof the red-room -- the spell which kept it so lonely in spite ofits grandeur.
Mr. Reed had been dead nine years: it was in this chamber he breathedhis last; here he lay in state; hence his coffin was borne by theundertaker's men; and, since that day, a sense of dreary consecrationhad guarded it from frequent intrusion.
My seat, to which Bessie and the bitter Miss Abbot had left meriveted, was a low ottoman near the marble chimney-piece; the bedrose before me; to my right hand there was the high, dark wardrobe,with subdued, broken reflections varying the gloss of its panels;to my left were the muffled windows; a great looking-glass betweenthem repeated the vacant majesty of the bed and room. I was notquite sure whether they had locked the door; and when I dared move,I got up and went to see. Alas! yes: no jail was ever more secure.Returning, I had to cross before the looking-glass; my fascinatedglance involuntarily explored the depth it revealed. All lookedcolder and darker in that visionary hollow than in reality: andthe strange little figure there gazing at me, with a white face andarms specking the gloom, and glittering eyes of fear moving whereall else was still, had the effect of a real spirit: I thoughtit like one of the tiny phantoms, half fairy, half imp, Bessie'sevening stories represented as coming out of lone, ferny dellsin moors, and appearing before the eyes of belated travellers. Ireturned to my stool.
Superstition was with me at that moment; but it was not yet herhour for complete victory: my blood was still warm; the mood ofthe revolted slave was still bracing me with its bitter vigour; Ihad to stem a rapid rush of retrospective thought before I quailedto the dismal present.
All John Reed's violent tyrannies, all his sisters' proud indifference,all his mother's aversion, all the servants' partiality, turnedup in my disturbed mind like a dark deposit in a turbid well. Whywas I always suffering, always browbeaten, always accused, forever condemned? Why could I never please? Why was it useless totry to win any one's favour? Eliza, who was headstrong and selfish,was respected. Georgiana, who had a spoiled temper, a very acridspite, a captious and insolent carriage, was universally indulged.Her beauty, her pink cheeks and golden curls, seemed to give delightto all who looked at her, and to purchase indemnity for every fault.John no one thwarted, much less punished; though he twisted thenecks of the pigeons, killed the little pea-chicks, set the dogsat the sheep, stripped the hothouse vines of their fruit, and brokethe buds off the choicest plants in the conservatory: he calledhis mother "old girl, " too; sometimes reviled her for her dark skin,similar to his own; bluntly disregarded her wishes; not unfrequentlytore and spoiled her silk attire; and he was still "her own darling. "I dared commit no fault: I strove to fulfil every duty; and I wastermed naughty and tiresome, sullen and sneaking, from morning tonoon, and from noon to night.
My head still ached and bled with the blow and fall I had received:no one had reproved John for wantonly striking me; and because Ihad turned against him to avert farther irrational violence, I wasloaded with general opprobrium.
"Unjust! -- unjust!" said my reason, forced by the agonisingstimulus into precocious though transitory power: and Resolve,equally wrought up, instigated some strange expedient to achieveescape from insupportable oppression -- as running away, or, if thatcould not be effected, never eating or drinking more, and lettingmyself die.
What a consternation of soul was mine that dreary afternoon! Howall my brain was in tumult, and all my heart in insurrection!Yet in what darkness, what dense ignorance, was the mental battlefought! I could not answer the ceaseless inward question -- WHY Ithus suffered; now, at the distance of -- I will not say how manyyears, I see it clearly.
received:no one had reproved John for wantonly striking me; and because.
I was a discord in Gateshead Hall: I was like nobody there; I hadnothing in harmony with Mrs. Reed or her children, or her chosenvassalage. If they did not love me, in fact, as little did I lovethem. They were not bound to regard with affection a thing thatcould not sympathise with one amongst them; a heterogeneous thing,opposed to them in temperament, in capacity, in propensities; auseless thing, incapable of serving their interest, or adding totheir pleasure; a noxious thing, cherishing the germs of indignationat their treatment, of contempt of their judgment. I know thathad I been a sanguine, brilliant, careless, exacting, handsome,romping child -- though equally dependent and friendless -- Mrs. Reedwould have endured my presence more complacently; her children wouldhave entertained for me more of the cordiality of fellow-feeling;the servants would have been less prone to make me the scapegoatof the nursery.
Daylight began to forsake the red-room; it was past four o'clock,and the beclouded afternoon was tending to drear twilight. I heardthe rain still beating continuously on the staircase window, andthe wind howling in the grove behind the hall; I grew by degreescold as a stone, and then my courage sank. My habitual mood ofhumiliation, self-doubt, forlorn depression, fell damp on the embersof my decaying ire. All said I was wicked, and perhaps I might beso; what thought had I been but just conceiving of starving myselfto death? That certainly was a crime: and was I fit to die? Orwas the vault under the chancel of Gateshead Church an invitingbourne? In such vault I had been told did Mr. Reed lie buried;and led by this thought to recall his idea, I dwelt on it withgathering dread. I could not remember him; but I knew that he wasmy own uncle -- my mother's brother -- that he had taken me whena parentless infant to his house; and that in his last moments hehad required a promise of Mrs. Reed that she would rear and maintainme as one of her own children. Mrs. Reed probably considered shehad kept this promise; and so she had, I dare say, as well as hernature would permit her; but how could she really like an interlopernot of her race, and unconnected with her, after her husband'sdeath, by any tie? It must have been most irksome to find herselfbound by a hard-wrung pledge to stand in the stead of a parent toa strange child she could not love, and to see an uncongenial alienpermanently intruded on her own family group.
A singular notion dawned upon me. I doubted not -- never doubted-- that if Mr. Reed had been alive he would have treated me kindly;and now, as I sat looking at the white bed and overshadowed walls-- occasionally also turning a fascinated eye towards the dimlygleaning mirror -- I began to recall what I had heard of dead men,troubled in their graves by the violation of their last wishes,revisiting the earth to punish the perjured and avenge the oppressed;and I thought Mr. Reed's spirit, harassed by the wrongs of hissister's child, might quit its abode -- whether in the church vaultor in the unknown world of the departed -- and rise before me inthis chamber. I wiped my tears and hushed my sobs, fearful lestany sign of violent grief might waken a preternatural voice tocomfort me, or elicit from the gloom some haloed face, bending overme with strange pity. This idea, consolatory in theory, I feltwould be terrible if realised: with all my might I endeavouredto stifle it -- I endeavoured to be firm. Shaking my hair frommy eyes, I lifted my head and tried to look boldly round the darkroom; at this moment a light gleamed on the wall. Was it, I askedmyself, a ray from the moon penetrating some aperture in the blind?No; moonlight was still, and this stirred; while I gazed, it glidedup to the ceiling and quivered over my head. I can now conjecturereadily that this streak of light was, in all likelihood, a gleamfrom a lantern carried by some one across the lawn: but then,prepared as my mind was for horror, shaken as my nerves were byagitation, I thought the swift darting beam was a herald of somecoming vision from another world. My heart beat thick, my head grewhot; a sound filled my ears, which I deemed the rushing of wings;something seemed near me; I was oppressed, suffocated: endurancebroke down; I rushed to the door and shook the lock in desperateeffort. Steps came running along the outer passage; the key turned,Bessie and Abbot entered.
"Miss Eyre, are you ill?" said Bessie.
"What a dreadful noise! it went quite through me!" exclaimedAbbot.
"What for? Are you hurt? Have you seen something?" again demandedBessie.
"Oh! I saw a light, and I thought a ghost would come. " I had nowgot hold of Bessie's hand, and she did not snatch it from me.
"She has screamed out on purpose, " declared Abbot, in some disgust."And what a scream! If she had been in great pain one would haveexcused it, but she only wanted to bring us all here: I know hernaughty tricks. "
"What is all this?" demanded another voice peremptorily; and Mrs.Reed came along the corridor, her cap flying wide, her gown rustlingstormily. "Abbot and Bessie, I believe I gave orders that JaneEyre should be left in the red-room till I came to her myself. "
"Miss Jane screamed so loud, ma'am, " pleaded Bessie.
"Let her go, " was the only answer. "Loose Bessie's hand, child:you cannot succeed in getting out by these means, be assured. Iabhor artifice, particularly in children; it is my duty to showyou that tricks will not answer: you will now stay here an hourlonger, and it is only on condition of perfect submission andstillness that I shall liberate you then. "
"O aunt! have pity! Forgive me! I cannot endure it --let me be punished some other way! I shall be killed if -- "
"Silence! This violence is all most repulsive:" and so, no doubt,she felt it. I was a precocious actress in her eyes; she sincerelylooked on me as a compound of virulent passions, mean spirit, anddangerous duplicity.
Bessie and Abbot having retreated, Mrs. Reed, impatient of my nowfrantic anguish and wild sobs, abruptly thrust me back and lockedme in, without farther parley. I heard her sweeping away; and soonafter she was gone, I suppose I had a species of fit: unconsciousnessclosed the scene.